Abstract:

This paper provides an account of the methodology used to gain consensus around the development of a national set of child well-being indicators in the Republic of Ireland. This development was identified as a key objective in the National Children's Strategy (2000) to provide the basis for the State of the Nation's Children report, which will be published in 2006. This objective reflects a growing national and international awareness of the need to understand and represent the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of children's lives in a way that is easily understood by different stakeholders (Ben-Arieh et al., 2001).